RICHARD COLLINS, PAKIRI, 1975
LEN WESNEY, ON COOK STRAIGHT FERRY, 1974FOCUS | ATHOL MCCREDIE
photography that was emerging internationally; critical works
by the likes of Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Garry Winogrand,
or even Robert Frank wouldn’t make it to our shores until the
following decade.
“It is important to remember that New Zealand was only partly
plugged into the rest of the world in the 1960s,” Athol says, “so
these photographers were catching fragments of what was going
on elsewhere, and mostly with a considerable time lag. So they
were seeing work done decades earlier by Henri Cartier-Bresson,
André Kertész, and Walker Evans, for example.”
Having not seen the more abrasive, disaffected work of their
contemporaries overseas and living in the relative comfort
and peacefulness of New Zealand at the time gave these
photographers a more “gentle, sympathetic, poetic” touch, in
Athol’s reckoning.
The impact these early contemporary photographers had on
New Zealand’s photographic history is, as the author mentioned
earlier, much clearer to see in hindsight. They are the practitioners
who prompted the mainstream art world to reconsider its
stance on photography, paving the way for photographers
of the late ’70s and the ’80s to have their work collected by
public art galleries, as well as shown and sold by dealers. This
period also opened the door to a far greater number of female
photographers, as well as sowed the seeds for an emerging
project-based documentary style.
Asked whether he sees a direct link between the photographers
of The New Photography and those practising today, Athol
isn’t drawing any firm conclusions. He says that today’s art
photography is heavily conceptual; it is difficult to appreciate
the photograph in isolation, without engaging with the idea the
photographer is working on.
“Maybe the closest thing is the sort of Instagram posting where
people put up an image of something quirky, funny, or interesting
they noticed,” he comments.
Wherever those tendrils of influence may snake today, the works
showcased in The New Photography are an enchanting time
capsule from the birth of a photographic movement. While few
today would question photography’s value as self-expression,
that is in no small part due to this first crop of contemporary
photographers. Athol has captured their images and words in a
publication truly worth treasuring.